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Whether political or not, satire has the power to be both funny and extremely effective at exposing and criticizing dominant power structures and ideologies. Irony and sarcasm are often used in satire to ridicule vice, abuse, hypocrisy, and inadequacy. Satire is often intended to shame and expose the failings of society, corporations, governments, and individuals with the goal of forcing an introspection and improvement in the circumstances that originally inspired the satire.
A popular example of satire in the media is The Onion and the article the site publishes after every mass shooting in the United States entitled: “No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”. Political cartoons, like the infamous one published by The New Yorker, are also a form of satire. The SimpsonsFamily Guy and South Park are all considered satirical. Secure Saturday night live Sketches are considered socio-political satire. Basically there has been a lot more satire than you think for years The Colbert Report to today’s funniest shows on Adult Swim. After all, it’s natural for artists to comment on their society and point out the problems it contains, and humor is often the most engaging and accessible way to do this.
There’s been no shortage of movies over the years that have used satire to get the point across, so let’s take a look at some of the most astute, vicious, and savage satire ever made.
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7 american psycho
american psycho satirizes Wall Street and the yuppie lifestyle through its main character, Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale. What is awesome american psycho is that it was marketed to exactly the kind of man it mocks. Based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, the film is set in 1987 and follows Bateman, an investment banker by day and a vicious serial killer by night. In the film, Bateman’s thoughts and actions are understandably off-putting, especially considering he acts a bit like a robot, with a huge grin on his face and speaking in a way that feels like forced glee.
Bales Bateman comes across as someone who observes the world around him and the people in it and behaves accordingly. It’s all about looks. If Bale’s performance of Bateman gave you a strange sense of deja vu, there’s good reason for it. In an interview, the film’s director revealed that Bale based his performance on a Tom Cruise interview Late night with David Lettermanin which Cruise apparently “had this very intense kindness with nothing behind his eyes.”
6 thanks for smoking
thanks for smoking is a 2006 film that brilliantly satirizes both the tobacco industry and the lobbying industry. Based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley, the film stars Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor, a tobacco industry lobbyist. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the novel “…a decidedly non-PC slash-and-burn satire about social politics, media exploitation, and the culture of spin,” going on to say it was an unlikely project for a film adaptation. We do not agree.
thanks for smoking is a brutal satire on the ridiculous concept of spin and lobbyists. Think about how the NRA handles the GOP today; despite ongoing mass shootings, they advocate for access to assault rifles. in the thanks for smoking Naylor’s charisma allows him to effectively market tobacco products that, let’s face it, will eventually kill most of their users. Naylor’s nemesis is an anti-tobacco Senator played by William H. Macy. Naylor’s argument is that people should be free to choose whether or not they want to risk cancer by having access to tobacco. Up is down and right is left in this cleverly manipulative satire.
5 choice
choice was released in 1999 and satirizes politics and the high school experience. It is also based on a novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. The film centers on Tracy Flick (a very young Reese Witherspoon), a ruthlessly ambitious high school student who wants to be class president. Matthew Broderick plays her teacher Jim McAllister, the student council advisor determined to sabotage Flick’s campaign. She destroyed the life of his best friend and former teacher, Dave Novotny. After it was revealed that she was having an affair with him, he lost his job and his wife left her.
Destroying Tracy becomes McAllister’s obsession. Tracy is obsessed with success and strives for it at all costs. The film presents the race for president as a choice on steroids that comes with life-changing results. There’s good news for Tracy Flick fans as Perrotta’s new novel, Tracy Flick can’t win revisits her life over 20 years later, which should be a fitting update given today’s dire and bitter politics.
4 borate
Sacha Baron Cohens borate satirizes American culture, ignorance and xenophobia with embarrassing absurdity. Borat’s seeming ignorance of American ways, phrases and behavior pushes the buttons of the people he meets in the film, driving them either angry or mad, sometimes both. But here’s the kicker: Borat isn’t as ignorant as he comes across, far from it, and it’s that fact that makes this satire work so well. Knowing how to push people’s buttons, Borat happily becomes part of the running joke at her expense, which creates wild satire with conceptual pranks directed at the film’s more ignorant people.
3 idiocracy
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idiocracy is a film directed by Mike Judge that for a time, particularly from the 2016 presidential election through the 2021 inauguration, felt like it was being used as an instruction manual by the former presidential administration. One of the film’s screenwriters agrees. In 2016, Etan Cohen tweeted“I never expected #Idiocracy to become a documentary.”
The film revolves around a perfectly average man who wakes up from a long deep sleep and discovers that the world has embraced anti-intellectualism and that he is the smartest person alive. This anti-intellectualism has led to a decline in American society where, for example, you can get a law degree from Costco. Oh, and the President of the United States is a pro wrestler.
2 heather
heather satirizes teen movies, girl rivalries and teenage cliques by taking the average high school experience and wildly exaggerating it. The 1989 film was reviewed by the Chicago Tribune as “caustic satire with a strange energy,” which is entirely appropriate. heather exists in a pre-internet and social media age but manages to be just as relatable today when reputation can really be shattered almost instantly.
Winona Ryder is great as Veronica, who rebels against her three best friends (who are all named Heather) and falls in love with JD (Christian Slater), the new kid who’s crazy about bringing guns to school. heather is not only satire, but also gloriously dark and cynical. The film was written by Daniel Waters to be the polar opposite of the sugary health of the John Hughes high school movies of the time. Instead of this, heather presents a high school full of cruel students that ends up becoming a dark and misanthropic satire.
1 Sorry to bother you
Sorry to bother you is a film from 2018 that pokes fun at racism and capitalism with pointed humor and moments of an almost surreal character. The film was marketed as a comedy, and while it delves into the crazy world of telemarketers, it makes for laughs, but also tackles some very serious things like racism, slavery, and the dehumanization of people who are different from us. Extremely bizarre, haunting and disturbing, its ending is a perfect ending to a maliciously dark satire. Directed by Boots Riley, the film examines the racial politics of the late capitalist era through the story of a corporate employee who inadvertently gets too close to the truth that his bosses have been hiding. Even the film’s title is a joke, because satire means never having to apologize, as the late film and literary critic John Leonard said.